4th Sunday of Lent
March 15, 2015
2 Chr 36: 14-16, 19-23
Eph 2: 4-10
John 3: 14-21
St. Vincent’s Hospital, Harrison, N.Y.
“In
those days, all the princes of Judah, the priests, and the people added infidelity
to infidelity, practicing all the abominations of the nations and polluting the
Lord’s temple” (2 Chr 36: 14).
At
the end of the 2d Book of Chronicles, the unknown author, whom we may call
simply the Chronicler, sums up Israel’s recent history. It hasn’t been pretty. Leaders and people alike have been unfaithful
to God, ignoring divine law, practicing idolatry and sexual immorality,
oppressing the poor and the weak, not respecting the sabbath day rest. It’s all catalogued in the books of Kings and
Chronicles and in the prophets.
Doesn’t
it sound a lot like the society and culture that we live in?
The
Chronicler then tells us the consequences of Israel’s infidelities. Those aren’t pretty either: the utter destruction of Jerusalem, including
the temple; slaughter; captivity and exile.
We
can look at our world and see what happens when people ignore God’s laws. There’s plenty of bloodshed—on foreign
battlefields and in our own cities. The
crushing of the poor, leaving them with little hope, leads to criminal activity
like the drug cartels, and it leaves the poor vulnerable to human trafficking. The lack of stable family relationships draws
young people to gangs. Religious and
ethnic hatred drives people out of their homes and into miserable refugee
camps—or into the risk of dangerous voyages to foreign countries where they
hope they might do better.
The
Chronicler concludes with word that God finally sent a deliverer to
Israel: Cyrus the Great, king of Persia,
who released the Jewish captives and let them go home to rebuild Jerusalem and
their country.
Our
2d reading, from St. Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians, speaks of another
deliverer whom God sent to Israel: “God,
who is rich in mercy, … when we were dead in our transgressions, brought us to
life with Christ … raised us up with him, and seated us with him in the
heavens” (2:4-6).
The
gospel reading from St. John says much the same thing in that famous verse,
“God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who
believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life” (3:16).
In
the OT Israel died a political, social, and culture death on account of their
transgressions. St. Paul and St. John
speak of the eternal death that we sinners deserve, and of God’s “great love
for us” (Eph 2:4), the richness of his mercy, that offers us forgiveness. Paul emphasizes that we don’t deserve
forgiveness: “by grace you have been
saved”—he says that not once but twice (2:5,8).
That is, God gives us a favor, grants us undeserved mercy; “it is the
gift of God” (2:8), and for no other reason than love—which is rather beyond
our understanding, because most of us are more inclined to demand justice and
fairness—or getting even—than to forgive and give 2d and 3d and 4th chances to
those who’ve hurt us.
One
of the purposes of this Lenten season is to remind ourselves that God has this
abundance of mercy to offer us. He loves
us more than we can imagine. He wants to
save us and draw us to himself. He wants
us to live with him alongside Jesus “in the heavens,” in eternal life as
members of his family. We have only to
accept his forgiveness, to come out of the darkness of our sins, our evil
attitudes and behaviors, and let him lead us into the light, to do the works of
the light and of truth (cf. John 3:19-21).
St.
Paul writes that “we are [God’s] handiwork, created in Christ Jesus for the
good works that God has prepared in advance, that we should live in them” (Eph
2:10). God the craftsman, like a master
potter or metalsmith or carpenter, has shaped us—you and me—making us for some
plan of his: to do good deeds, to speak
goodness, to live goodness, “that we should live in” those good works. He gives us his grace that we might live—live
in goodness, live in the truth, live in the light, and live forever with his
Son Jesus.
 |
| The raising of Lazarus (Byzantine icon) |
What
happens when we live in truth and goodness, when we walk in the light? Long before we get to heaven, our lives get
better! There’s no cheating, no
infidelity, no covetousness and greed, no anger and assault. There is forgiveness, mercy, understanding,
compassion. Don’t you love seeing those
qualities in Pope Francis? What would
our lives be like if you and I practiced them?
What would our society and our culture be like if you and I had more of
a positive impact on them?
And
that’s the other purpose of Lent: to
induce us to change ourselves—our thoughts and behaviors—for the better, “so
that [our] works may be clearly seen as done in God” (John 3:21), and so that God
“might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in his kindness to us in
Christ Jesus” (Eph 2:7)—because we’ve accepted the gift of his grace and let
him rule our lives.
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